Dr. Rao is a Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Tennessee Technological University. Previously, he was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan Tech.

Dr. Rao is a Fellow of two major professional societies in the field—ASME and SAE. He has conducted both basic and applied research in different areas of acoustics and vibration ranging from analytical modeling of damping of materials, joints, and composite structures to experimental work involving small power tools to large scale machines (e.g. excavators, diesel engines). His research has been sponsored by NASA, NSF, ARL, State of Florida, Ford, GM, Daimler-Chrysler, Caterpillar, TRW, Johnson Controls, John Deere, NIOSH, Arctic Cat, Polaris, Xerox, and Volvo-Korea. He has over 100 publications in technical journals and conference proceedings. Also, he has advised 9 Ph.D. and 34 M.S. students. Dr. Rao has received the US Fulbright award, National Science Foundation Research Initiation Award and was honored by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for his work on the damping of the Hubble Space Telescope truss system. In addition, he was recognized as a United Nations Development Program expert in Noise & Vibration Control. He serves as an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration. He was recently awarded the 2011 INCE Outstanding Educator Award from the Institute of Noise Control Engineering, USA for his decades of outstanding contribution to noise control education. He is also active in Engineering Education, ABET accreditation and short course teaching in the areas of Acoustics, Noise, Vibration, Modal Analysis, Digital Signal Processing, Sound Quality, Outcome Based Engineering Education and Preparing for ABET Accreditation

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